Building Castles in the Air
by Acirederf
Summary: Hetalia AU. A tale of princes, knights, a cranky butler and a nation on the brink of war. Main Pairings: America/England, Germany/Italy, Spain/Romano. USUK, GerIta, Spamano.


**Building Castles in the Air**

**Hetalia AU. A tale of princes, knights, a cranky butler and a nation on the brink of war. Main Pairings: England/America, Germany/Italy, Spain/Romano. USUK, GerIta, Spamano. **

**Author note: **

**This fanfic is completely AU. It is set in a completely different version of our world where Rome never fell and yet most of the nations managed to grow and prosper in pretty much the same way they did in real life (that is before Rome eventually conquered them). It isn't modern day, instead it is more set in the time of knights and princes and shit. I appreciate the premise sounds like a bit of a shambles, but I think I've made it work, so have a look before you dismiss it on principle. **

**Oh and I'm using the term 'king' instead of 'emperor' to describe Rome, because this fic will have a strong fantasy/adventure theme to it and I think it fits in better with the overall style. **

**Hot for Teacher will be updated soon, I have the chapter ready I just can't bring myself to edit it. **

**The main three pairings are America X England, Germany X Italy and Spain X Romano, but Russia X China, France X Canada and Hungary X Austria X Prussia are also supporting pairings and the characters involved are important to the plot. **

**Ulrich – Germania **

**Roma – Rome.**

**This chapter contains both the prologue and chapter 1 :).**

* * *

**Prologue**

It was no secret that King Roma, leader of the Roman Empire, the most powerful nation on Earth was something of a multi-culturist. He had a French cook, an English Butler, his personal musician was Austrian and the Royal guard was comprised of the mightiest warriors hand-picked from across the globe.

Where the other countries - when they fought - focused on squashing and eradicating the other cultures in favour of their own, King Roma took a more 'economical' approach. Whilst he did replace their government officials with his own and stationed numerous squadrons of his militia across the countries, he was careful not to trample on what he considered to be the 'character' of each nation.

He enjoyed English literature, French cooking and German Engineering. The Swiss handled his finances and he mostly left the Americans to their own devices when it came to manufacturing goods (especially weaponry).

This was the secret to his success.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

How did Arthur Kirkland end up as butler to the king of the most powerful empire on earth? To this day he still wasn't sure. Initially he'd been trying to rob him. You see Arthur Kirkland was not a butler by trade.

He was a _pirate. _

Unfortunately like most pirates he had a weakness for rum and bawdy sea-shanty's and so instead of plundering the most powerful nation in the land, he sort of crashed into it. After a long night reading 'Alice in Wonderland', his usual alcohol-induced hallucinations had been a little more colourful and had resulted in his ship-mates having to tie him down to prevent him from diving in the ocean to save 'the pretty green rabbit'.

It had taken more than half the crew to restrain him and with not enough people to take proper control of the ship, instead of docking in Rome as they had intended, they ran into shallow water and ended up stranded amongst some very sharp rocks. Whilst it hadn't sunk, there was no way the ship was sea worthy, the hull had been torn to pieces and the lower levels were all but destroyed from water damage. Ironically, whilst the rocks had initially damaged the ship, they soon became the only thing keeping it afloat.

The next morning, a group of soldiers came to investigate the ship wreck and were able to take the crew back to land and fortunately some forethought on Arthur's part had even managed to spare them an imminent arrest for being pirates. Even when drunk, Arthur still wasn't stupid enough to actually hang the Jolly Roger off of his ship when just about to dock at the port of a country he intended to rob. He also always ensured that before they decided to loot any country, at least a handful of his crew spoke the language (although as Rome had conquered almost all of the known world, in this particular instance most of his crew already spoke it).

After escorting the crew safely to shore, content that the boat was legal due to the large union jack hanging from the mast, Arthur found the soldiers to be very accommodating**. **They were more than happy to provide a map of the area and even spent time explaining where the best places to drink were and the different shops they needed to go to, in order to buy the supplies to repair the ship. Sure, one particularly obnoxious white-haired man did remark on Arthur's fancy velvet waist coat and feather hat, but that was mostly to warn him to 'stop copying the French'. That had earned this particular well-wisher a black eye.

Things seemed to be looking up; the pirates had successfully managed to infiltrate Rome without arrest - a feat they had been perfectly ready to celebrate. This lasted of course only until they realised that although un-incarcerated, they didn't have any money. Whilst there was enough stolen gold and jewels aboard the ship to last them a life time, Arthur only hoarded big prizes. He was no petty thief, he was a pirate and upon his ship were some of the most famous pieces of jewellery and artwork in the world.

This actually turned out to be something of a problem.

Owning only treasure of world renown meant that he couldn't try and sell any of it without the piece being instantly recognised and getting him and the rest of his crew arrested, put in prison or possibly executed.

There was nothing for it. The entire crew would just have to get jobs.

At first this didn't go too well, whilst the more physically adept of the crew had found manual work fairly quickly, Arthur was slight and his skill at fighting came from his speed and wit with the blade so he had no chance finding work as a labourer. He was far too sharp tongued to be a shop assistant and thought the idea of taking up mercenary work or becoming a smuggler seemed like too dangerous an investment - considering he only intended to stay in the country for a couple of months.

By lunchtime he decided that job hunting was just too difficult, so instead he dug around on the ship for the few bits of treasure he owned that weren't famous enough to get him arrested, found the local tavern and was, within a few hours, hideously drunk.

Unfortunately Arthur was incredibly aggressive once sloshed and after only a few drinks he had already tried to start a fight with the bartender who made the mistake of asking the drunken Brit if he would like a slice of lime in his beverage.

"A limey? How dare you sir! I'm a bloody Englishman and I demand that you –"

"You're English?" This question was soon followed by a smiling auburn haired man, who came running forward with such enthusiasm that he nearly knocked Arthur off his seat.

"Yesh," came his slurred response.

"Oh goody! Hey Ludwig isn't this great! His funny accent is just what grandpa Roma has been looking for."

Following this strange interruption, the cheerful young man (and his terrifying looking guard) took Arthur by the arms and physically dragged him off to the palace, with the promise of more rum once they arrived.

Unfortunately it wasn't till morning the next day, (once he finally awoke) that Arthur found out what had actually happened at the palace the previous night. He was quickly informed that the young man who had brought him here was Feliciano, the king's grandson and prince of Rome, that he had tried to impress the king with a song about a happy goblin, and last but not least - that he had been hired as the palace butler.

Whilst not generally a Roman practice, apparently the king had read about butlers in some British story books and quite liked the idea of having one for himself. At first, Arthur had been incredibly annoyed that he had been hired into the king's service without his consent (or at least sober consent), but then it occurred to him that he was going to rob Rome anyway and as butler he would have direct access to every room in the royal palace.

Besides, the job really wasn't _that_ bad. Whilst he despised taking orders from anyone, the king was friendly and polite enough not to irritate Arthur too much and he didn't really have to interact with his moronic grandsons, so his nerves were mostly spared. He was also delighted to discover that the king had an incredibly proficient library, full of English novels and he was given free run of the kitchen, should he want to make himself tea or even bake up a small plate of scones (which tasted delicious, no matter what the frog that worked there might insist).

When Arthur was not working, he spent his free time sitting in the king's flower garden, reading, drinking tea and occasionally working on his embroidery. These were his favourite times of the day and soon he had quite made up his mind that once he was done being a pirate, he would buy a house in the country and become a gentleman so he could relax like this full time.

It was during one of these periods that he first met Alfred Jones.

Arthur had been sitting on one of the small wooden seats in the garden, drinking a cup of Earl Grey tea, immersed in the most recent chapter of 'Pride and Prejudice,' when he was interrupted by a loud crash and a scream that almost definitely came from an American.

"How many times do I have to tell you to get out of here! This training ground is for knights only."A large man dressed fully in steel armour came marching out angrily, dragging behind him another, slightly terrified looking young man,

"Dude, I can't understand what you're saying. Try speaking American."

Arthur rolled his eyes, fighting the urge to find an English dictionary and smack the speaker over the head with it. Still he was intrigued, apart from his crew, he had not so far met anyone else that spoke using his mother-tongue, as butchered as it might have sounded and couldn't resist peering over his novel, to get a better look at him.

The man he saw, was of course Alfred. He had sandy blonde hair that fell messily over his forehead, stopping just before his eyes which were blue and reminded Arthur of cornflowers. His build was lean, although there clear muscle definition in his bare arms and the silhouette of abdominal muscles could be seen through his white top. Despite his initial irritation towards the way the man spoke, Arthur had to admit he was rather handsome.

"Stupid kid, doesn't even speak the language." This time it was the other man who spoke, muttering darkly to himself, before turning back to Alfred, now speaking in English."You are not a knight. You cannot train in the grounds." He spoke slowly, his manner deliberately patronising.

"But I'm going to be! I'm going to be the best knight ever." At this point Alfred stood up and for the first time since he'd arrived in the garden he looked unafraid. The other man just let out a harsh bark of disbelieving laughter "Whatever you say kid."

"You just wait! One day I'll be better than all those guys in there. One day I'll be a hero!"

Arthur put down his book, his interest in the conversation growing despite himself. He took another glance at the American, noting the determination in his voice and face which looked older now and fixed with resolve. Arthur had to admit, he was a little impressed.

Apparently the knight was impressed as well, because he let out another, although far gentler laugh. "What's ya name kid?"

"Alfred."

"All right Alfred. Ya wanna train in the palace?" Alfred nodded with such force, that Arthur was half surprised his head didn't fall off. "Well I can't let ya train in there with the knights, firstly cause ya ain't allowed and secondly cause those guys will kick the shit outta ya. But I'll tell you what. How about I lend you some of the training equipment? I'll let you take what you want; so long as you promise to keep it within the palace walls and return it when you're done, okay?"

At first Alfred just stared in disbelief, not quite registering the words being said to him, before a bright and brilliant smile spread across his face.

"Really, thanks! This is so great!" The smile began to dim a little as he continued, "Uh, where am I supposed to practice if not in the training area?"

"How about here? This is a pretty nice spot, lots of trees for target practice. " Alfred looked around for a few moments thinking, before finally nodding in agreement.

"Yea! It will be like my own private training arena!" The knight looked a little sceptical but laughed along with it anyway.

"Sure kid, that's the spirit!"

Arthur groaned loudly. This was his spot. _His._ He didn't want it ruined by some loud American, throwing his sword around. Upon being suddenly alerted to Arthur's presence, the knight looked up.

"Well if it ain't the new Butler." His tone was one of sneering amusement. "Hey Britty, ya got a problem with anything I'm saying." Arthur looked up at the man slowly, taking into account his thick steel armour and long sword, and compared them to the small book he was currently armed with.

"No, no problem."

"That's what I thought!" The man replied smugly, flicking an invisible speck of dirt off his armour and turning to march off, although not before giving Alfred one last piece of invaluable advice. "Bye kid, train hard!"

"Tosser," Arthur said under his breath once he was sure the knight was a safe distance away. He watched the man he was now left with do a few unbearably exuberant stretching exercises, before picking up a rusting bronze sword.

"Okay Alfred. You can do this!" He ran one hand through his hair, which fell backwards into a flick over his forehead, before he made his way towards one of the trees and began thrashing wildly and unskilfully at it. Arthur watched in amazement at what had to be the most bizarre fighting technique ever.

"Damn fool. Can't even handle his weapon right." Arthur muttered, taking another sip of tea before turning back to his book.

* * *

"Hey Ludwig, what are you doing? Can we go play football? Can we?"

"No, the king has specifically requested that you –"

"But it's so pretty outside! Let's go play football!"

Ludwig brushed his blonde hair back and gave a long suffering sigh.

"No."

"But Ludwig -" The prince began flailing his hands wildly into the air, gesturing first to Ludwig and then to the passing field that they usually played in - before letting out a wail of disappointment, "-_football_!" The blonde soldier's usually stern face broke out into a small smile, at Feliciano's over-exaggerated reaction.

"I am sorry my prince, but the king has requested that I escort you to get your hair cut in preparation for this evening's ball." He hesitated briefly, before laying a gentle hand on Feliciano's arm. "So no football today, I'm afraid." Feliciano hung his head and began to walk slowly, pointedly dragging his feet and sighing. Ludwig rolled his eyes. "Besides Feliciano, I would only defeat you as usual." At this Feliciano lit up and Ludwig couldn't help but notice the way his soft amber eyes seemed to gleam as he laughed.

"Hey Ludwig you made a joke!" Admittedly it was uncharacteristic of the strict Germanic man and there was a time when he would have deemed this type of frivolity on duty as unacceptable. But after three months with Feliciano this attitude was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. Feliciano was like sunshine, there was a brightness to him that Ludwig found almost infectious and it became a daily struggle not to become immersed in his laughter and optimism and everything else that Feliciano was.

However, this didn't stop Ludwig from becoming irritated by the young prince's behaviour, specifically the thousands of ridiculous questions he liked to harass him with. Sometimes it became so unbearable that the questions actually started to reappear as echoes in Ludwig's nightmares.

"Hey Ludwig?"

"Yes Feliciano."

"Do you think cats have belly buttons?" There was a moment of silence as Ludwig began to prepare himself for what he knew could very well be an hour, of incessant and inane questioning. Still, he swallowed in a deep breath and tried to answer seriously.

"Well, they are mammals so I assume – ," But Feliciano had stopped listening and had already moved on to another topic. His favourite subject, a subject that Ludwig had become far more familiar with than he had ever wished to be.

"Ludwig do you like pasta?"

"I-"

"I love pasta! Francois cooks it for me every day for supper!" At this point Feliciano seemed to be chattering away almost to himself. Ludwig tried to fight his irritation.

"I know…"

"And for breakfast! This morning I had meatballs and pasta, although I'm not sure if that's my favourite pasta because I also like carbonara. Hey Ludwig have you ever tried carbonara? You should! It's like breakfast only..." It was at this point that Ludwig usually changed his mind, Feliciano was nothing like sunshine, he was a never ending whirlwind of pasta and sentences with no pauses. Ludwig tried to hold in his temper, but...

"FELICIANO!"

"Yes Ludwig?" Feliciano stopped and smiled that smile, the sunshine smile and Ludwig suddenly felt all his anger melt away. He kept his back straight and tried to keep a scowl on his face, inwardly cursing his weakness, but it was no use.

"…Never mind."

Still Feliciano may have been less oblivious to Ludwig's anger than he appeared to be, because it was nearly a full five minutes before he began trying to talk again.

"So Ludwig! Are you coming to the ball tonight?"

"As head of the royal guard I am obliged to be there."

"Will you dance with me?"

"What? No!"

"Why not?"

"Well firstly it would be inappropriate -," He coughed straightening his shoulders. "And secondly... oh don't look at me like that Feliciano. You do not need me; there will be plenty of pretty young girls for you to dance with." This thought did seem to cheer Feliciano up for a moment and it almost looked as if he was going to go bouncing along happily again.

"Yea you're right! Still, we're friends Ludwig. Friends can dance together can't they?"

"Friends…" Ludwig swallowed and a familiar guilt began to stir uncomfortably in his stomach.

Once he had been nothing more than a warrior. Well not 'nothing more than', he had been one of the finest soldiers in his battalion. Being over six feet tall and built like a marble statue did have its advantages in the field of combat, but it was Ludwig's extreme devotion to technique and the military lifestyle that really gave him his edge. It wasn't long before he had gained the notice of some very important personnel and had even had an audience with the king, after leading and executing a particularly impressive raid to recapture a military base.

But in the end, his efforts had been futile. Rome was too strong and despite putting up a brave fight they had lost.

It therefore came as a surprise to Ludwig that almost immediately after this crushing defeat, he had received an invitation to be trained into the Roman royal guard. Apparently the base he recaptured was being held at the time by one of Rome's most famous centurions, a Hungarian-born woman named Elizabeta Hedervary.

Ludwig of course considered the request a great honour, whilst he may have fought against the Romans he had found they battled with bravery and were worthy of respect. That said, he was_ incredibly_ reluctant to pledge allegiance to them so quickly after his beloved home country had fallen and initially planned to respectfully decline.

That was until Ulrich got into contact with him.

Ulrich was the former king of Germany who had been overthrown when the Romans took charge. Although he was a cold man, he was clever economically and had prevented numerous famines as well as greatly improving the standard of living for the average German family. Because of this, he had become very popular during his reign. In fact he was so well liked among the people of his homeland, that even after the Roman takeover he had been kept alive and free with most of his wealth intact because they believed that doing otherwise would provoke a rebellion. When Ulrich heard that the Roman's had requested Ludwig's military service, he had not found it difficult to send some of his contacts to find him and bring him in for a private audience.

It turned out, that as well as still holding the allegiance of most of his own nation, several neighbouring countries had also made secret contact with Ulrich and despite the Romans best efforts, they were planning a rebellion. He therefore impressed upon Ludwig that it was a matter of national duty, that he should accept the job as royal guard and become one of the nation's spies.

It was not a job Ludwig enjoyed at all.

As a warrior, he had always fought his enemy directly, and his personality reflected this. He was straightforward in speech and always made his meaning and intentions very clear, it was one of the reasons he had made such a good solider. So the role of a spy, which involved so much evasion and deceit, did not come naturally to him.

However, it was only when he had met Feliciano that he had started to _hate_ his role.

He had started to become genuinely fond of the little Italian prince. Sure, his constant inane questioning could be more than a little bothersome, but the longer Ludwig spent around Feliciano, the more he realised how much he missed him when he was alone. There had been a time when he had enjoyed the silence of his room in the evening, usually Ludwig liked his own company and used it for personal reflection and improvement.

Now it just felt like emptiness.

But how could Ludwig call Feliciano a friend, when their entire relationship would eventually amount to a betrayal.

"Feliciano I am your guard and protector. Not your friend."

"But Ludwig..."

"No Feliciano. I will not discuss this with you any further. We are already late enough for your hair cut as it is."

Feliciano went silent and this time he stayed silent for the remainder of the journey.

Ludwig sighed.

* * *

"Why don't you wear the nice clothes your grandpa got you! Come on, you'll look so cute!"

"I don't want to look cute, bastard!" Lovino emerged from behind the curtain, his face red and fixed in a scowl. He had been told to wear the expensive tunic his grandpa had bought for him but for no discernible reason appeared to be upset by the selection and had refused to wear it. Instead he was now attempting to fashion his own outfit, which really just consisted of him angrily trying on strange combinations of old clothes with varying (no) success.

"But he has arranged this ball especially for you and Feliciano. His lovely grandsons! I'm sure he would appreciate it if you made just a little effort eh? Come on, just for me!" Antonio pushed forward the tunic the king had chosen towards Lovino (who was currently dressed in some strange feathered one-piece) smiling.

"I don't give a fuck what _you _think about how I dress!" His tone was aggressive, but he did swipe the tunic out of Antonio's hand and take it behind his dressing curtain nonetheless. "And my grandfather doesn't care anyway. Don't try to deny it, this whole thing is just an excuse for him to parade around his _precious_ Feliciano!" The last few words were spoken in a cruel sing-song voice. It wasn't that Lovino didn't love his brother, he did. He loved both his Grandpa and Feliciano more than anyone else in the world.

But that didn't stop him from being jealous.

The problem was that Lovino was the eldest, and with both his mother and father gone he was also next in line to the Roman throne. He was not however, the favourite of the people, or his grandfather, or even, if he was being honest; himself. Lovino was awkward, brash and generally bad with people. His younger brother Feliciano on the other hand, was merry, sociable and well liked. Even that scary looking German bastard that guarded him didn't seem to be immune to his charm.

But it was worse than that. Lovino could have probably coped with his brother being more popular than he was, if he at least felt that he would make a more capable king. He could handle being unpopular, as long as he felt he would be able to govern the country justly and efficiently.

But so far this did not seem to be the case. Lovino failed at almost every task he attempted. He couldn't draw or paint, like his brother could. They had tried to make him a foreign ambassador, but it had resulted in a brawl. The only thing he could do even a little better than his brother was fight, but really that wasn't saying much and he was by no means an expert.

If Lovino couldn't perform even the most basic tasks, how would he ever become a capable ruler?

In the end he had just given up. Part of him believed that if he could be as rude and dislikeable as possible, there was no way they'd let him on the throne, that they'd have no other choice but to let Feliciano replace him.

Everyone would be happier if that happened anyway, the only person who really seemed to hold any belief in his ruling ability was his manservant Antonio.

But Lovino didn't like him anyway. Honest.

"Oh now come on, don't say that," Antonia began soothingly, "Your grandfather loves you very much."

"Oh really!" "Then how come my precious younger brother gets the captain of the royal guard for protection, when I'm stuck with some good for nothing Spanish manservant!"

"Perhaps he thinks you can protect yourself better than your brother."

Lovino let out a derive snort and tried to pretend that he didn't feel his cheeks grow warm, flushing at the compliment.

Trying to hide the small smile that was creeping across his face, Lovino quickly started changing into the tunic Antonio had handed him.

It didn't look _that_ terrible he supposed. It was red velvet, with a dark hem that offset his eyes; lightening them just enough that you could see the bright rays of golden cognac lying across darker brown so that his gaze looked like polished wood. His hair too seemed richer, the intense scarlet of the velvet giving it a depth and thickness, emphasising the softer curves of hair, giving them a sleek heaviness.

Trying to pretend that he wasn't pleased, Lovino straightened his spine, hardened his face and walked rigidly out of the changing area in front of a waiting Antonio.

"Oh Lovino," He clasped his hands together; "You look adorable." Lovino scowled, fixing Antonio with a hard stare, but he just smiled handsomely in return. "I told your grandpa that he hadn't made a mistake letting me choose your outfit," he stood up beaming.

Lovino just stared, his face a ghostly white. "He let you choose my outfit."

"That's right! I didn't tell you till now because I thought it would be a nice surprise." Antonio ruffled his hair affectionately. This quickly snapped Lovino back to reality and he smacked Antonio's hand, marching away from him.

"Fuck you! You Spanish bastard!" Lovino stared angrily at him for a few seconds, before turning bright red and storming out the room, slamming the door behind him. Antonio just laughed.

* * *

**AN:**

**Hope you enjoyed that! Please review and let me know :). Seriously, for every review I get I throw a friggin miniature party. Even if it's to give constructive criticism, it's all for a good cause! **

**I think that the knight that America was talking to was vaguely supposed to be Cuba. I really like Cuba, so he may well get a bigger role later. **

**Thanks so much for reading! **


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